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Melbourne entrepreneurs Chris Koch and Chad Stephens turned a $30,000 loan and unused CDs into $15 million in cash when they sold their property rentals website 1Form Online to REA Group on Tuesday.

The pair founded the site, which allows prospective tenants to apply for multiple properties using a single online form, in 2006 after realising the difficulty of managing rentals.

“Even in the US and other markets, no one had done an online tenancy application system, so we thought ‘let’s have a crack at this’,” said Mr Koch.

Mr Koch and Mr Stephens received a $30,000 bank loan to start the business. When that ran out after several months, they found themselves pawning their CDs to buy food.

1Form now claims to account for about three-quarters of rental property listings in Australia and New Zealand, and will form part of REA Group’s bid to consolidate its dominance in the property sector, giving the company a database of 2.4 million renters.

‘Terrific opportunities’

“1Form.com supports our stated strategy to connect people with the practical services they need to live their property dreams; we see terrific oppor­tunities to draw on our industry expertise to extend its reach and product offering,” outgoing REA Group chief executive Greg Ellis
said in a statement.

REA Group said it would continue to provide the data to online property ­portals and remove fees associated with the site. The entrepreneurs sold the website and accompanying technology but will keep the staff behind 1Form, which is now developing a mobile app to allow users to store and retrieve personal data entered online.